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or that doesn’t let life grab me by the hair and swing me 180 degrees into something new and scary, and probably unknown.

And sometimes when that happens, my pure passions- the very things that bring lightness to my being, that have sustained my sanity when I’m about to rip out my hair and go sell muffins on the street corner- take a backseat to everything else.

Not even a backseat, cause you can still see things if they’re in the backseat. They get placed in the trunk. Under the spare tire.

So-what has happened since I last blogged?

why, let me show you.

well- that fundraising I was doing:

One hot day in August- I held a fundraiser at a local restaurant-Cantina Grill – and was worried about my reaching my final fundraising goal when BOOM! My old teammates surprised me with a check with the remaining $1,500.00 I had left to fundraise.

the magic check

and yes, I cried. You would’ve thought I had won the lottery. And in a lot of ways, I did.

soon after that, well-2 months after- I completed 26.2 miles in beautiful San Francisco, California on behalf of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It took me 6 hours- I was rained on for 3…and I pretty much looked like one of those people on the fishing boats from a storm scene out of “Deadliest Catch”

And I got a Tiffany necklace too

The feeling is beyond incredible.

Now, behind all this madness I was quietly involving myself in two things : Yelp.com, and applying to graduate schools.

Well, one particular school.

New York University.

Dream School

Back story:

As you may or may not know- I’m a born and bred New Yorker.

That being said, when my parents divorced and I left the island of Manhattan at about 6 years old, it was always my father’s dream that I would return back to New York for college. As I grew older, that dream became my own. But fear of rejection, fear of not knowing..basically-cowardice, thwarted my attempts and I pursued my undergraduate degree at University of Florida.

Thanks to divine intervention ( or what some of you may know as “Twitter”), a program at NYU caught my attention and I caught theirs. A friend of mine, who had also applied,introduced us via our twitter handles and before I knew it, I was speaking with NYU, discussing admissions. I was scared. I was nervous. I may have been quietly jumping and down while on the phone with them.

Without making a big fuss about it online,I applied to NYU in July, and waited.

Now, what does applying to graduate school and writing free reviews for a website based on the people, for the people, and by the people?

Yelp.com introduced me to people that encouraged not only my creative ( and somewhat crazy) manner of thinking, but pushed me to be uncomfortable and go outside of myself-to trust my instincts. What began as just a way to review yummy food and wax poetic about sweets has, to this day, turned into a community for me that I cherish and hold dear.

Fast Forward : November.

November was fast. and crazy.

Basically-

I went to North Carolina for a friend’s wedding on November 12th.

November 13th my sister went into labor and had difficulties.

November 14th I was on a one way flight from North Carolina to NYC,with nothing but a dress, strappy heels, and some leggings in my carry-on.

The rush was worth it to welcome my second nephew into the world :

that little person has a huge part of my heart.

While in the city, the pressure of finding out whether I got into NYU or not was getting to me, and the pulse of the city was syncing with my desire to find something new outside of Miami- where for two years I have been struggling to find a job that made me ultimately happy.

Then, on November 29- I had two very important conversations. The first was with someone, from Yelp, who told me to stay in the city, to push for what I wanted. The second was with a friend of mine, who couldn’t shake the feeling that all of these crazy turns of events had me in the city for a reason. That same evening, on a car ride back to the city from Yonkers- I received this :

I screamed so loud I gave myself a headache that didn't go away till yesterday.

And now?

I am happy.

Planning the big move to NYC in the fall, in disbelief at how everything really does have a plan,

hungrier for life, crazier than ever.

Lesson Learned in 2010: pay no mind to when other people doubt you, leave you, or mislead you- the only person that needs to believe in you, is well..YOU.

At this point , the person who has asked me this loaded query has regretfully pulled out his/her phone to pretend to text anyone- maybe even the MovieFone guy-and avoids eye contact with me till I say something like, “Oh but you know, I write like…”Harry Potter” meets “Sex and the City” kinda stuff, except Harry is Carrie and his broom is made by Christian Dior and..and..wait, where are you going?”

Silly answer for a silly question to an unemployed writer.

How can I answer such a question when it can have so many answers?”Fiction, with a little bit of my real life experiences mixed in with imagination, passion–that’s the kind of writer I am.”

So, with this blog- I decided it would be interesting to take it in a couple of different directions. You won’t log on here to find daily musings about how my love life is in the pits, or how my mom is annoyed that I once again used her clean socks instead of mine, cause I didn’t want to sift through the laundry basket to find a matching pair of my own.

Okay, maybe sometimes on the latter. Storytime is fun.

This blog is for free-thinking and observation. Be it about my adventures in conquering my first full marathon,job-hunting in a flat economy-food, books, music, and overall social life ( on and offline).

Of course, there will be the sway into other topics as I see fit and entertaining- Miami life, politics, social commentary.

At most, it provides a venue for me to write, and get back into the practice of doing it more often.